Dragonborn Legacy
by RavenSouls
Summary: Arctan Alontius, the dragonborn of legend, is killed in his massive final battle against Miraak, saving the world but also leaving it defenseless. His biological daughter, Arenna, must relinquish her childhood early to save the world in his stead, from a threat that Arctan could never have hoped to address. (Year dates marked 5e because Alduin's fall should be the turn of the age.)
1. Prologue: Apocrypha

**Prologue: Apocrypha**

17 Evening Star, 5e 001

* * *

_16 Years Ago..._

Arctan Alontius had been on dragonback before, when Odahviing had flown him from Whiterun to Skuldafn, during his desperate final play against Alduin. Even with his mind occupied as it had been - just as it was now - he had been able to appreciate the absolute beauty of the landscape he was flying over. Now, though... Arctan was disappointed at the view. It was just a massive lake of churning muck, with a few shattered and twisted islands jutting out of the nothingness. He had entered the world that he was in now, Hermaeus Mora's personal plane of oblivion, on one of those, and with the assistance of Sahrotaar, the blue serpentine dragon which he had shouted into his control, he was flying towards another one.

_Flying towards your death,_ a voice resounded in his mind. Paarthurnax had warned him that, should he face Miraak at the summit of Apocrypha, his death was guaranteed - but so was Miraak's, leaving the world safe. All he hoped was that his Lydia and their little Arenna, only about a month old, would be safe. His line of thought was cut off as Sahrotaar came to a harsh landing, and Arctan slid down off of the blue dragon's neck. There was the enemy he had been hunting, but had not seen, for over a month.

"Miraak," Arctan growled, putting his hand on his dragon bone greatsword and drawing it from his back. Miraak laughed, looking as if Arctan, the last dragonborn, posed him no threat.

"So... The first dragonborn meets the last dragonborn, at the summit of Apocrypha," Miraak droned with a chuckle. Miraak drew his own sword, in preparation for the battle that was inevitably coming. Miraak took a breath to continue speaking, but Arctan wasn't in the mood for listening to droning speeches - he knew that he was going to die here, and he was going out on his own terms. So he preempted Miraak with the first three words of power he had ever learned.

"Fus… RO DAH!" Arctan's voice blew Miraak backwards into a rather large pool of acid. Dragons roared all around Arctan, as Sahrotaar and two of Miraak's loyal dragons took to the skies and began to duel each other. Miraak, however, was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, Arctan heard a familiar, very dangerous group of words coming from his left, and hit the ground, just as a massive wave of energy passed over his head - a mass that, had it made contact, would have ripped his soul from his body and killed him instantly. Arctan chuckled as he rose.

"That's how you want to play it, hmm?" Arctan muttered, glaring at Miraak, "Well, you'll be pleased to know that two can play that game." Arctan took a deep breath, and shouted again, uttering a much more powerful, deadly utterance.

"Rii… VAAZ ZOL!" An identical wave of energy was flung forwards from Arctan, about to smash into Miraak. Come to think of it, it would have been better to open with this second shout, killing Miraak without risk. Maybe if he had, he could have proven Paarthurnax wrong and survived this encounter. Well, too late now. Arctan's only goal was to take Miraak down with him.

However, Arctan soon realized that it wouldn't have mattered. Miraak quickly threw up an effective ward, which blocked most of the effect of the shout, and the first dragonborn only flinched backwards as the ward broke, rather than being blown to the ground and killed. However, that brief flinch was a window for Arctan to attack, and he took it. The last dragonborn charged the first with one of his famously terrifying Nord battle cries, and took a massive swing at Miraak. Miraak, already off balance, simply allowed himself to fall backwards under the swing and into the acid pool. This time, Arctan saw what happened. Miraak was grabbed by several tentacles which stretched out of the acid and pulled him under. Arctan whirled and looked up, and saw Miraak appear out of another pool of acid on the opposite side of... whatever this structure was. Arctan couldn't claim to know. Arctan did know, however, that he had to close the distance between himself and Miraak quickly. He knew just how to do that.

"WULD NAH KEST!" Arctan felt his Thu'um being thrown forwards, and felt as he was dragged forwards with it. Arctan immediately recovered from the massive distance-covering dash and swung his massive greatsword at Miraak again. This time, Miraak didn't have the opportunity to dodge, and was forced to try and parry Arctan's greatsword with his own smaller one. It didn't work very well, as Arctan felt his swing carry through. Miraak growled in pain, and tried to dive back into the acid in order to transport himself again. Arctan knew better than to let him once again, as Arctan didn't think he would be so lucky as to land a second hit. Instead, Arctan tackled Miraak into the acid... and felt them both get yanked under, into a void covered in Hermaeus Mora's rotting aura. Arctan felt Miraak struggle in his grip, and knew that he had won.

"FUS RO DAH!" Arctan shouted, right into Miraak's face. The last dragonborn felt the first's head snap backwards, his neck broken. Miraak's body faded out of Arctan's grasp, and Arctan felt himself drift into the void, lost forever. His final thought before the dark void took him was of Lydia, and his lovely little Arenna.

* * *

25 Evening Star, 5e 001

Lydia watched with a smile as Arenna played with the dulled dragon claw that Arctan had left her with just after she was born, when he came back about two weeks prior to visit her and see Paarthurnax for advice. He had left again, telling Lydia that Miraak wouldn't leave them alone and must be dealt with, and that he would be back by the year's end... any day now, by Lydia's approximation. Even as she finished her thought, she heard a knock on the door, and her spirits soared - no one would stop and knock at Heljarchen except her husband - he was always forgetting his key, and everyone else knew better than to disturb the dragonborn's hall, should the man himself be home. Lydia glanced back to make sure that Arenna was situated and ran to answer the door, a smile on her face. Her smile fell when she saw that the person who had knocked was not her husband - it was a woman, dressed in silvery Stalhrim armor with pale blond hair. It was obvious that she was in a bad mood.

"Are you Lydia Alontius?" The woman asked, looking at Lydia with pale blue eyes. Lydia nodded. Fear was growing inside her - she dreaded what this woman was about to tell her.

"I'm sorry, Lydia, but... I've come to inform you that your husband, Arctan, died 8 days ago. He gave his life to stop Miraak at the summit of Apocrypha..." the woman couldn't finish as Lydia burst into sobbing tears.

"No! He promised... he promised that he would come back!" Of course the divines were this cruel. Lydia was now left alone to raise a child who, already, was showing evidence of being incredibly powerful. Lydia felt, though it was completely unjustified, a burning hatred for this woman who bore such bad tidings. Lydia screamed at her, slamming the door in her face. Lydia felt the tears rolling down her face, uncontrolled. She couldn't muster the strength to wipe them away. Then, she heard one of the worst sounds that a mother could ever hear. From the nursery, she heard Arenna wailing in dismay, as if she had heard the news of her father's early demise and was reacting just as Lydia was. Lydia couldn't allow Arenna to be alone through that - her own grief would have to wait. Lydia hastily wiped away her tears and rushed to the nursery, seeing Arenna lying in her cradle wailing and crying.

"WAAAH! GAAAAH! FUS RO DAH!" Lydia barely had time to process the strangely coherent sound that Arenna had made, bearing remarkable similarity to one of the powerful shouts that Arctan had used, before she was flung across the room by an invisible wave of energy. Arenna continued wailing incoherently, but Lydia looked at the child with a mix of awe and horror. The entire nursery had been thrown into disarray by that singe utterance - to a far higher degree than any of the times Arctan had used the shout. Lydia knew that the only method to dealing with her daughter now lay in the hands of the greybeards - they were the only ones who knew enough about the voice to teach Arenna the discipline she needed in order to avoid tearing her surroundings apart. Lydia rushed out of the room and hastily packed a few travel bags. She only hoped that Arenna wouldn't discover an even more destructive shout before she reached High Hrothgar.

AN: And so it begins. Feel free to leave a review, but I've got a good amount of planning behind this one; I'm not just writing as I go along. So save suggestions for details, and... just wait about an hour before you review. I'm hoping to get a second chapter released tonight.


	2. Chapter 1: Silence Shattered

AN: I did it! I actually kept a deadline! (For once, don't expect this to be a regular thing...) But, enjoy!

Formatting guide:

"Normal speech"

"_Dovahzul Speech"_ (Marked this way instead of spelled out for reader convenience, since there is a lot of it.)

"**Powerful** **Entities**"

**Chapter One: Silence Shattered**

22 First Seed, 5e 017

* * *

_ Present Day_

Arenna braced for impact as Paarthurnax dove towards the ground, wincing at how far behind schedule she was. The lesson was supposed to have started a full hour ago, but couldn't commence without her presence ensuring the students' safety - the Greybeards were capable of defending themselves, but their method of battle, using frequent and repeated Thu'um magics, was far too destructive to be performed on the Dragonsreach balcony, unlike Arenna's more controlled, precise magic, honed since she was 8 with her presence at the college of Winterhold. And oh, how far she had come. Arenna was, at age 16, the single youngest Arch-Mage of Winterhold in recorded history, promoted after a massive disaster involving the previous Arch-Mage and an artifact known as the Eye of Magnus. Arenna didn't have any time to reminisce, though, as she slid off of Paarthurnax's back, receiving a caring nuzzle from Paarthurnax. Curse her, but she was unable to stop herself from letting out a delighted giggle.

"_I wish you luck and a safe return, o wind under my wings. And remember my name, should you have need,_" Paarthurnax rumbled sweetly.

"_This should not take long. I will see you soon, fire of my_ _heart,_" Arenna replied, stroking Paarthurnax's chin. She smiled as he jumped into the sky, flying back upwards to the top of Monahven. Arenna grinned as she watched her... she was embarrased to admit this, but Paarthurnax was in fact her lover - fly gracefully upwards into the sky. Realizing that she was only getting later, Arenna broke into a sprint on the road leading up to Whiterun, sprinting past guards and others who commented on several bits about her - the robes she was wearing, the fact that she was moving at a dead run - and she ignored everything. She slipped through the city gates on the coattails of a high elf, and sprinted past him, not acknowlidging the altmer any further. Finally, she reached the Dragonsreach doors, and slipped through, slowing to a walk and greeting Jarl Balgruf the Elder as she passed. She reached the doors to the balcony where the lesson was taking place, and walked through them at a brisk pace.

"Ah, Arenna!" Arngeir announced as she stepped onto the balcony, "We're glad you could join us. We were just about to get started." Arenna looked around sheepishly as a murmur ran through the crowd. She caught the word "Arch-mage" a few times, but the phrase "Dragonborn's daughter" was far more prevalent among the group. Arenna sighed inwardly - no matter how much she managed to accomplish in her life, she would never have a hope of being known for her own deeds; she would always be overshadowed by her father's legacy, despite having never actually met him. Her mother, Lydia, had been assassinated by the Thalmor less than a year later, after she had been left with the Greybeards in an attempt to control the power inside of her. The Greybeards' efforts to keep her from using the Thu'um had worked all too well, however, and Arenna now found herself unable to produce any effect at all from a shout, save for in emergencies when it came out involuntarily.

Arenna realized with a start that her train of thought had completely overshadowed Arngeir's instructions to the group - not that it mattered; she had listened intently to an identical set of directions more times than she could count. She waited until Arngeir gestured for the group to attempt the technique, and immediately took action.

"Fus!" she shouted, channeling energy through her voice into the word. Like usual, she felt the energy leave her, and her voice echoed like a thunderclap across the balcony, but no visible effects were accomplished. The only thing she could accomplish with the Thu'um was getting someone's attention - arguably quite useful while trying to summon a dragon from across Skyrim, but in this situation utterly purposeless. Even still, she accomplished far more than anyone else on the balcony - none of them managed to do anything but look and sound like idiots. Arenna grinned, seeing that she had at least made some slight progress from when she had started.

The attempts, both by Arenna and the remainder of the students, continued for a few minutes, with Arngeir giving a few tips on occasion to a student here or there. No one, Arenna included, made any further progress towards their goal of flinging a pile of hay off of the balcony. However, just as Arngeir was about to introduce another method of approach to the problem of shouting, Arenna sensed something tripping her wardnet, set up a few days prior. It was set only to detect men or mer who had a specific intent, being to harm the group practicing on the balcony. That one twinge was immediately followed by a massive rush of sensation, indicating dozens of people tripping the net. Arenna dropped to one knee under the sudden, massive extrasensory input, gasping for breath. After a moment, and several curious stares, she managed to form her words into a warning.

"The Thalmor are coming. Clear the balcony. Now," Arenna said, looking directly at Arngeir as she stood up, casting Ebonyflesh on herself. The students and Greybeards alike jumped into action immediately, crowding up the stairs on either side of the balcony and sneaking through the side doors which had been installed there - all but one young, Nord boy, who stayed just outside the door to watch in fascination. Arenna didn't notice, instead focusing her attention on the door to the balcony. She focused on her anger, channeling the emotion into a flame that appeared in each hand. Then, the door burst open. Arenna immediately began to charge a master level flame spell, Fire Storm, but before she could unleash it was blasted by several lightning bolts. Her ebonyflesh spell and warded robes absorbed a majority of the physical damage, but the lightning was still significant enough to cut her magicka down to nearly nothing and interrupt her spell, causing her to lose focus. Arenna had just enough magicka stored to channel a single bolt of chain lightning, which flashed through the Thalmor ranks, cutting down 9 battlemages. However, it was nowhere near enough. Almost a hundred Thalmor poured onto the balcony, surrounding Arenna and watching her warily. And she was completely and total helpless.

_Remember my_ _name_, Paarthurnax's voice rang through her head. It was a reminder that may well have just saved her life. Arenna took a deep breath, and called,

"Paarthurnax!" The Thalmor troops, the entire mass of them, leaped backwards in shock as her voice rang like thunder, easily ten times louder than her most powerful attempt at Unrelenting Force. Even the young Nord boy, who remained still on the balcony, yelped in shock at the sudden noise, but his cry was lost in the resounding echo of Arenna's call. Then, the Thalmor began to laugh. One battlemage, seemingly in charge of the group but by no means marked in any way, stepped towards Arenna.

"Well, well. It looks like your voice has failed you, Arch-mage. Here I expected better - our advisor at your college, Ancano, said you were quite a thing to behold. It seems he was wrong," the battlemage taunted. Arenna looked up at him and smiled.

"Even the most powerful of mortals can be defeated by an entire cohort of mages," Arenna conceded, "But true power lies in the friends one has. I happen to have one that is significantly less mortal than we are. How about you?" The battlemage looked confused at her announcement, questioning the relevance of the fact. Then, the thing she'd been waiting for happened. A massive, earth shaking roar resounded from the sky as Paarthurnax swooped onto the balcony. Arenna picked her moment, and jumped. Arenna had been practicing this particular maneuver for a long while, and was quite confident in it now. As Paarthurnax crash landed on the balcony, crushing almost half of the Thalmor ranks, Arenna was in the air above him. As soon as he stood up, ready for combat, Arenna landed squarely on his back, just where she loved to sit. Paarthurnax growled menacingly at the lead battlemage, and the remaining group of mages that hadn't been squished. The mage stuttered and squirmed uncomfortably.

"This is why you always want to make good friends," Arenna announced as Paarthurnax took a deep breath. The last thing that the group of Thalmor saw was a flash of orange, accompanied by a low growl of three syllables:

"**_Yol toor__ shul!"_**


	3. Chapter 2: Ashes of Whiterun

AN: Wow, I forgot that this story even existed. I'm going to try to get back to it some, but no promises for regular updates.

Formatting guide:

"Normal speech"

"_Dovahzul Speech"_ (Marked this way instead of spelled out for reader convenience, since there is a lot of it.)

_Character_ _Thoughts _(Only difference between this and Dovahzul is the quotation marks)

"**Powerful** **Entities**"

_**"Powerful Entities Speaking in Dovahzul"**_

**Chapter Two: Ashes of Whiterun**

22 First Seed, 5e 017

* * *

Arenna blinked against the harsh, bright orange light that had just flooded the room, a result of Paarthurnax's flame-infused shout. All that remained of the Thalmor hunters was some ash that was floating through the air. Arenna slid down off of Paarthurnax's back, preparing to tell him to get out of Whiterun before he was noticed. But before she could say anything, she was interrupted by another person sneezing. Arenna's attention immediately snapped up to the balcony, where she noticed a Nord boy, wide-eyed with guilt at being caught.

_ "I'll leave you to sort this out, my love," _ Paarthurnax said, bowing and jumping off of the balcony. Arenna was tempted to watch wistfully as he flapped off into the distance, but she had other matters to deal with. She turned towards the kid, staring him down.

"I'm sorry! I know I should have left with the others! Please, don't hurt me!" the boy yelped, backing towards the door. Arenna didn't know what she had done to earn this type of terrified reaction - it had been Paarthurnax, after all, who had burned through an entire army of Thalmor mages, and the large white dragon was very clearly winging his way away from Whiterun. Arenna hadn't managed to kill more than a few mages before she had been thoroughly immobilized.

"It's fine, kid. Everyone screws up now and again - even me. That's why people have friends to watch their backs," Arenna said, trying to get rid of the fierce look that was no doubt left over on her face from the recent battle. The abundant amount of magicka that had filled her, siphoned off of the residual energy left by Paarthurnax's powerful flame breath, didn't help her mood - it filled her with nervous energy, made her jumpy, amplified her emotions. She let the energy fade back out of her body, and it seemed to work, as Arenna saw the kid visibly relax.

"What's your name, kid?" Arenna asked, smiling in an endearing manner. The boy's eyes widened in surprise, almost as if he couldn't believe that she was actually asking for his name. His next words confirmed it.

"Me? You actually care?" the kid asked in shock.

"Yeah, I care. I can't keep calling you kid - we're pretty much the same age. So are you going to tell me or just stand there in shock?"

"Oh - sorry. I'm Rarin. I don't have a family name, or a title, or anything. I'm just Rarin," the boy said.

"Nice to meet you, Rarin. I'm Arenna Alontius, but I'm sure you already knew that, didn't you? It seems that I can't escape my father's shadow, no matter how hard I try." Arenna stopped herself before she trailed off into voicing her usual circular train of thought. Lately, it seemed to progress from frustration at her father's accomplishments overshadowing her own, to anger at him for dying before she was able to meet him, to a sort of melancholy at all of the crap that she had been put through, to pride that she had made it through all of the above, and then back to the beginning to start all over again. It was only beside Paarthurnax, or with a specific goal in mind, that she managed to escape the endless depressive loop. She usually preferred Paarthurnax's company.

"What? Why would you want to? He's left you an amazing legacy - you probably don't have to do anything, and life would just hand you everything you needed. I just don't get it," Rarin replied, and Arenna cursed inwardly. She did NOT want to have this conversation, especially now. She was about to reply and attempt to change the topic, but just as she opened her mouth, the clamor of warning bells sounded throughout Whiterun. Those bells wouldn't be ringing in response to the threat that had just been dealt with; Whiterun's guards, unlike those in a number of other holds, were thankfully more efficient than that. Those bells meant that something else was going on.

"Ugh, dammit! Why can't I ever get ten seconds of peace?" Arenna rolled her eyes and opened herself back up to Aetherius, pulling in as much Magicka as she could hold, before rushing back through Dragonsreach and towards the city gates, where the new threat would most likely be. When she got there, Rarin still in tow, she saw possibly the worst site she could have encountered - an entire army of Thalmor soldiers, fully outfitted in gleaming, gilded moonstone armor, sweeping through the gates and slaughtering what had to have amounted to nearly the entire Whiterun city guard.

_No way to beat them all... not without help, _Arenna noted, charging two spells. The one in her right hand, a simple conjuration spell designed to summon a temporary, but effective, sword, was cast first. The second, a far more complicated spell that only a few people in Skyrim were capable of performing, ripped open a hole to a lesser plain of Oblivion, right in her exact location. The spell, called Atronach Teleport, was designed to move the caster to a new location, while leaving a powerful atronach of the caster's choice standing in the caster's place. It functioned flawlessly, depositing Arenna in the middle of the Thalmor ranks just as they were bombarded by a number of fireballs, courtesy of the flame atronach that she had just summoned. Before they had time to process her appearance, she spun in a circular slash with her bound sword, shearing through several Thalmor bodies and causing them to drop. As the Thalmor turned towards her, preparing to attack, Arenna cast Atronach Teleport again, this time leaving a storm atronach in her stead. She grinned as she appeared atop a guard tower just behind the Thalmor army, just as a number of elves were blown apart by a powerful lightning bolt, thrown by her storm atronach. Arenna charged an ice storm spell between both hands, flinging it into the crowd of Thalmor soldiers and freezing a large number of them solid. Her storm atronach went down as the Thalmor managed to get their act together, but Arenna wasn't done yet. The flame atronach she had placed continued to bombard the soldiers, taking down a few at a time with it's exploding fireballs. Arenna fired three chain lightning spells, all dual cast, into the crowd. Each found a target, and jumped through the ranks to several more, dropping a total of 17 Thalmor soldiers due to their densely packed nature. Arenna judged that she'd managed to kill a quarter of the army by this point in the onslaught. Then she caught sight of something that made her curse out loud - Rarin was charging the army, alone and unarmored, wielding only an elven sword that he probably didn't know how to use, likely taken off of a dead Thalmor somewhere or another.

"No! Rarin, get back! You can't deal with this!" The kid either didn't hear her, or ignored her instructions. She swore, casting a bound bow quickly and firing an arrow into the back of a soldier who approached Rarin, causing him to stumble and allowing the boy's terribly sloppy swing to kill him. But he wouldn't stop, charging into the midst of the Thalmor soldiers opposing him with a defiant yell. Arenna fired four arrows into the foremost soldiers, dropping three, but her fourth shot clattered off of a gilded elven helmet. The soldier that she had failed to kill cut Rarin down a moment later.

"Damn it!" Arenna cursed, discarding her bound bow and casting another atronach teleport, placing a flame atronach on the tower to bombard the enemy from above. She was running out of magicka besides - only enough for a few more spells. Arenna cast a bound sword and bound shield, and that was it. No more spells until she had the ability to settle down and focus on refilling her magicka source. As it was, she got a trickle of magicka flowing in, but it was nowhere near enough to cast more spells. Arenna rushed towards where Rarin had fallen, slashing through the Thalmor had gotten to him, and grabbed his limp form, pulling him back away. The boy was breathing weakly - enough that a bit of restoration magic could still save him. Unfortunately, she couldn't focus long enough to channel enough magicka to cast a powerful enough spell to save the boy. She tried, but immediately was snapped out of her trance as she had to block a Thalmor soldier's attack before running the man through. Her atronachs had fallen; only the one in the tower was left standing, and Thalmor were climbing the encampment to destroy it as she watched. The remaining members of the army surged towards her, wrapping around her and attacking from every direction. It was too much. Arenna parried a sword and slashed off another soldier's head, but there were just too many. She couldn't beat them all. Arenna blocked three more attacks, but missed a fourth by a hair, causing the sword to clip her shoulder, causing blood and pain to well up. Arenna gasped. Seven more swords hit her - each of them only scoring a minor wound, but combined causing a large amount of damage.

_I can't do this,_ Arenna thought as she was overwhelmed by pure, undiluted panic, everything else forgotten. She had to get out, run, hide, do _something,_ anything at all...

"_YOL TOOR_ _SHUL!"_

The words sprang, unbidden, from Arenna's lips, and a surge of power and heat exploded around her, creating a wave of destruction far more powerful than even Paarthurnax could produce. The closest Thalmor to her were vaporized instantly, while those farther from the blast were flung into the air, engulfed in flames. Arenna gasped in a deep, ragged breath as she watched those three words kill over three hundred Thalmor soldiers in an instant - almost the entire remaining army. Somehow, the wave of destruction had hit only the Thalmor - Rarin, laying right next to her, was completely unharmed, as were several wooden houses within the radius of the shout which should have been set ablaze. The seven Thalmor soldiers who were unharmed - those farthest from the blast, who had simply been knocked over, stumbled to their feet and ran, likely experiencing the same panic that Arenna had felt just a few moments earlier.

Arenna finally managed to pull together enough coherence to cast a simple healing hands spell, which slowly but surely healed Rarin's wound, and he mumbled incoherently, something about which Arenna wasn't surprised. Restoration magic could heal the human body, but a simple spell such as the one she was casting wouldn't restore lost blood, and there was a lot of it. In the few moments that Rarin had been bleeding, he had coated the ground in blood - Arenna was now kneeling in a massive pool of the stuff, which was staining her leggings and the bottom section of her robes. She'd need to spend some time washing that out - or better yet, invent a spell designed to remove liquid and foreign particles from matter. That could be handy for more than just cleaning fabric - it could separate out the base components of an Alchemical mixture or something of that nature as well. She'd have to look into that sometime. But now wasn't that time; she could only do so much with her magicka stores freshly exhausted, and Rarin still needed healing - he could very well still die from the blood which he had lost. Arenna picked up Rarin and brought him unsteadily to his feet, before he wobbled and collapsed, Arenna being unable to support his weight. Surprisingly, eight guards, likely from up by the palace, came rushing down as reinforcements, the little good they did now.

Surprisingly enough, Arenna was actually familiar with one of the reinforcements, and quickly waved the woman over.

"Arenna? What do you need?" the guard asked. Arenna gestured to Rarin's exhausted form, and gave instructions to bring the boy to Danica.

"I'm too exhausted to cast any measure of compotent healing spell right now," Arenna explained when her friend in the city guard raised an eyebrow. The guard effortlessly lifted Rarin up off of the ground and turned to bring him to the temple, but Arenna stopped her for just one moment.

"Thank you, sister," Arenna told her, looking Arctan's first adopted daughter straight in the eyes. Lucia smiled proudly, not saying anything in reply before turning to take Rarin in to recover. Arenna didn't bother informing anyone else of her departure as she slipped through the shattered city gates, exhaustedly stumbling a distance up the road and away from the city before shouting to the sky once more, calling Paarthurnax back. With the Throat of the World, his normal place of residence, so nearby, it took the white dragon only about twenty seconds to arrive, rather than the few hours that it would have taken when she called him from the College. As such, the echoes of her call had not yet finished fading when she heard his beautiful roar as her lover descended from the sky, landing gently beside her.

_"You are finished with your task, then?" _Paarthurnax inquired as Arenna climbed onto his back, a position which had become very comfortable to her over her sixteen years.

_"Back to Winterhold?"_ Paarthurnax asked, expectant, as he readied himself to climb into the sky once more.

_"No," _Arenna replied, _"Not yet. Just upwards, to Monahven, for now."_ She was glad that her relation with Paarthurnax was so loving - from what she had heard of most mated pairs in dragon culture, to appear as weak as she was before her mate would be an insult, nearly a crime. Paarthurnax was much more understanding, simply supporting Arenna's tired form as he climbed through the sky, gently depositing her on the peak of the Throat of the World.

_"Are you able to tell me of what transpired? I do not wish to make you push yourself further, if you are too exhausted," _Paarthurnax said as Arenna leaned against his neck sleepily.

_"It happened again," _Arenna said, _"I was trying to save a child from the Thalmor that attacked Whiterun. I panicked, and the shout killed over three hundred Thalmor soldiers - almost the entire invading force."_

_"And yet, you did not burn down the city. That is something to be proud of, regardless," _Paarthurnax told her, lifting her spirits immensely. It was one of the reasons why she loved him - he always knew what part of the truth needed to be said to comfort her, but never lied or made things up in order to do the same.

_"It always leaves me so tired... I know we've never done this before, but... would you mind?" _Arenna asked, snuggling against Paarthurnax's neck.

_"I would not. Go ahead," _Paarthurnax replied, giving Arenna the permission that she wanted. It was a shame that their bodies weren't compatible, although Arenna was still determined to find a way around that particular issue. For now, though, she'd have to settle for the limited intimacy that was allowed them. Still moving with a measure of uncertainty, Arenna removed her robes and underclothes, folding them neatly next to her travel pack, which she set down near the small word wall, before snuggling up close against Paarthurnax's chest. The snow-colored dovah curled his wings around her form and gently brought them both to lay on the ground, Arenna shivering with pleasure at the sensation of her lover's scales against her bare skin.

She fell asleep not a minute later.

AN: Sorry for the few of you who actually found this story originally and were hoping for updates. For those of you who are seeing it for the first time now because it got bumped to the top of the recents list, welcome! As I said, I completely forgot about this story and haven't updated it in far too long. Please leave a review on the story if you feel so inclined. I want to ask you all if you feel that the story deserves an M rating - the last paragraph of this chapter seemed borderline to me, but I don't want to bump it to M for no reason. Stay tuned for the next chapter, which hopefully won't take another four months for me to remember to write.


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